By installing a green facade on a building wall, safety barrier or around supporting columns, you can create an almost-instant garden – even when ground space is limited.
The benefits of green facades include building shading and cooling, beautification of built structures, energy cost-savings, filtering of pollutants, and improved health and wellbeing of occupants.
Green facades are used in many applications. This includes on multi-storey commercial, office and residential building walls, as well as inside shopping centres, office spaces and more.
Here are some facade inspirations to get you started.
Facade inspirations: outdoor and indoor applications
1. Residential
Green facades can be used to create a hanging-garden effect on apartment complexes, such as the one at Vance Apartments near the Sydney CBD.
For this project, we installed structural supports made from 6mm stainless-steel cables and Webnet mesh for the facade’s planter box system.
The end result is a series of beautiful vertical gardens that cascade down over nine levels, providing shade and privacy for the residents and beautifying the surrounding environment.
2. Commercial
We’ve worked on many commercial green facade installations around Australia. This includes Collins Arch in Melbourne – a sustainable duo of mixed-use towers linked by an elevated bridge and comprising a series of stepped terraces.
The complex also comes with a shared sky garden, including a green facade made possible by a mix of Webnet mesh and plants pre-grown by Fytogreen. It’s early days yet, but as the climbing plants continue to grow, we think it’s only going to get better!
3. Tourism and accommodation
A green barrier can create an awesome drawcard for an accommodation building or centre. At Sydney’s Taronga Zoo accommodation centre for example, Tensile installed vertical cables on the unit balconies to support a range of native climbing plants.
The benefits of the finished green barriers include shading, dappled light and privacy for guests, without marring the magnificent harbour views.
4. Safety barriers
Green barriers can also improve the aesthetics of otherwise uninspiring structures such as carparks.
A planter-box approach often works well for this, as in the case of the safety barrier on the Sydney Yacht Marina carpark, which consists of a series of planter boxes supported by Webnet.
The finished facade provides a dual purpose – safety and fall protection combined with beautification of the carpark’s exterior.
5. Retail centres
You might not automatically think of green facades as something you’d see in a shopping centre, but this is exactly what happened at Westfield’s Warringah Mall in Brookvale.
The centre’s 17 columns have been wrapped in Webnet mesh that supports the climbing plants, creating a series of spiral-shaped gardens.
The climbing plant columns are visible from both outside and under-cover areas, contributing to the creation of a relaxing and leafy environment.
6. Office spaces
Facades can also be installed inside to create a beautiful indoor garden in all kinds of locations – from building foyers to offices.
An example is the indoor garden at the Stonnington City Council office in Melbourne. In this case, a three-level climbing plant structure doubles as both a safety balustrade and a vertical garden.
The council wanted to create an environment that would improve air quality and staff wellbeing, and the installation certainly seems to have made the grade!
Need more facade inspirations? Contact us! We can help bring your inspired green facade idea or project to life. To find out how, get in touch.
